Weapons, primarily rifles, shotguns and the like, are maintained by law enforcement agencies in secured storage position and in particular storage racks. Most patrolmen in vehicles have a shotgun installed in a security rack that is mounted in the front seat of the vehicle with the rack being bolted to the floor of the vehicle and the shotgun being locked in the storage rack. Most of these guns are locked in the rack by an electric gun lock which has a release switch usually mounted in a concealed place beneath the dashboard of the vehicle. This enables the patrolman to manually actuate the switch which will automatically unlock the lock enabling the gun to be removed rapidly from the rack in emergency situations. Many of these electric gun locks include a timer which automatically relocks the lock after a predetermined amount of time, usually several seconds, preventing removal of the gun.
Although these existing electric gun locks do perform satisfactorily, they possess one serious problem. The lock cannot be opened by the patrolman should the vehicle suddenly lose power because of battery failure if the vehicle is in a wreck or because of other vehicle malfunction. This could place the patrolman in a difficult position, especially if an emergency was developing at the time of power loss. Therefore, it is desirable that such gun locks be provided with a manually actuated unlocking mechanism which will enable the patrolman to unlock the lock to remove the weapon even though there is no power to the normally operated electric lock.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a security lock for a gun rack which can be operated by the usual electric switch and, in addition, can be mechanically unlocked by a key independent of the electrical locking mechanism thereby enabling the patrolman a secondary means to remove his weapon from the locked rack in the event of power failure in the vehicle.
There are various prior art locking systems which can be operated both electrically and mechanically such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,200,623, 3,241,344, 3,796,073, 3,835,678, 4,099,752, 4,426,864, and 4,615,548. However, most of these systems are expensive and complicated mechanisms which would not be suitable or practical for incorporation into a lock used for securing a weapon in a storage rack.